When Backhanded Compliments Come With the Best of Intentions

Move aside backhanded compliment, and make room for your more nuanced cousin: The poorly-phrased but well-intended one. (Jeez, it doesn't even have a cool nickname.) Over on Salon, Sarah Hepola has written an essay about her quiet diet and how people are reacting to her 40-pound weight loss by saying, "You look healthy." Writes Hepola, "They say it so often and with such enthusiasm that it can have the inverse effect of upsetting me. I can't help wondering how unhealthy I used to look."

Ugh, that feeling is so familiar. We've all experienced compliments that actually make us feel more self-conscious. The nice folks chatting up Hepola are clearly using the word "healthy" in some lame P.C. way that allows them to avoid the word "weight," while still acknowledging a change. But side-stepping the issue almost highlights it somehow.

A couple of weeks ago, a lovely friend who I hadn't seen in a month effusively told me that my skin looked great. It was super-nice and—for that moment—true. She didn't mention my loathsome life partner, acne—which I've always struggled with and we have never talked about. Suddenly, her compliment made me aware that she had noticed it before. (And worse, after months of decent skin, I am now having a terrible breakout. And I feel like I can't pretend that other people don't notice it. Ack!)

Other Allure editors have had similar experiences, ranging from the maybe-I'm-imagining-it overemphasizing of the word "today" when someone says, "You look nice, today" to slightly more targeted statements that definitely were not meant to carry the strange gravity that they did, e.g. "You look so pretty with a tan" or "You look so pretty with makeup on; you should wear it all the time."

Should people think twice before making a flattering remark, or is self-conscious overthinking on the part of the receiver what makes these comments awkward? The compliment-deliverers are trying to do a sweet thing, after all.

What do you think—have you ever received a truly well-intended compliment that weirdly made you feel bad?